The present invention generally relates to patient monitoring. More specifically, the technology disclosed herein relates to systems and methods for detecting gross head motion from Positron Emission Tomography (PET) images.
Head motion is difficult to avoid in long Positron Emission Tomography (PET) studies, degrading the image quality due to blurring and severe artifacts, thereby offsetting the benefit of using a high-resolution scanner. This may in turn lead to lower detectability of tumors, inaccurate SUV calculation, and incorrect lesion or planning volumes in radiation therapy. Secondly motion artifacts cause problems in attenuation correction of PET images.
There is scope of improvement in cost effectiveness, speed, ease of implementation and patient comfort.